Phil Taylor's papers
|
BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 3 - 2004 (mainly Iraq)
U.S. 'Appalled,' Bush Tells Arabs by M Reynolds & A J Rubin 
LA Times, May 6, 2004 U.S. 'Appalled,' Bush Tells Arabs; Lawmakers Seek Abuse Hearings By Maura Reynolds and Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writers WASHINGTON - President Bush appeared on two Arabic-language TV channels Wednesday to condemn the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, while U.S. officials from Washington to Baghdad issued apologies in an effort to stem the mounting political and public relations damage in the Middle East and around the world. As congressional anger at the White House also escalated, Bush called the abuses "abhorrent" and promised "justice will be delivered." "This is a serious matter. It's a matter that reflects badly on my country," Bush told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television. "Our citizens in America are appalled by what they saw, just like people in the Middle East are appalled." The president's comments stopped short of an apology, but his spokesman went further. "The president is deeply sorry for what occurred and the pain that it has caused," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Bush would have said so himself, McClellan said, if he had been asked the question directly. The White House statements were part of a broad effort by the United States to contain the international outrage over abuse of Iraqi prisoners under American control. The furor was touched off last week when photographs surfaced of soldiers humiliating naked detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. In Iraq, U.S. military officers said they were shamed by the incidents. At checkpoints, usually brusque soldiers became pointedly courteous to Iraqis. At a briefing in Baghdad, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's usual taciturn and tough military style gave way to words reflecting disgust. "My Army's been embarrassed by this," Kimmitt said. "My Army's been shamed by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those soldiers did to your citizens. It was reprehensible, and it was unacceptable. And it is more than just words&. We have to take those words into action and ensure that never happens again." With the failure to turn up weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration has increasingly justified the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a campaign to rid the country of human rights abuses perpetrated by the regime of Saddam Hussein. The abuses by U.S. soldiers, which took place in the same prison known as a site of torture and the disappearance of thousands under Hussein, threaten to undermine that rationale. In his interviews with Arabic-language TV channels, which came on the same day he asked Congress for an additional $25 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush appeared to be trying to reverse the damage by turning the prison incidents into a lesson in democracy. "It's also important for the people of Iraq to know that in a democracy, everything is not perfect, that mistakes are made," Bush told the U.S.-sponsored Al Hurra channel. "But in a democracy, as well, those mistakes will be investigated and people will be brought to justice." "A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this," Bush told Al Arabiya. "A dictator wouldn't be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation." At the site of the abuse, the Army's new detention chief, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, offered contrite words. "I would like to apologize for our nation, for our military," Miller told reporters at the Abu Ghraib complex, west of Baghdad. "It has brought a cloud over the enormous efforts of hundreds of thousands of our soldiers. And we will work our hardest to reestablish the trust that Iraqis feel [for] the coalition, and the confidence that the people of America have in their military," he said. Kimmitt said U.S. commanders throughout the country were encouraging their troops to reach out to Iraqis and show them that the Americans there were not all like the handful facing criminal charges or letters of reprimand in connection with the abuses. One senior military official said troops were being told to be honest with Iraqis and say, "We screwed up." "Listen to those & soldiers on the street, who are out there every day alongside your soldiers, your police," Kimmitt said. "They will tell you that those pictures you saw are not them. They will tell you that those pictures violated every value that they believe in." The Washington Post reported today that it had obtained additional photos of prisoners as part of a collection of more than 1,000 pictures taken by military police in Iraq. Some are routine scenes, the Post said. But others show naked men, apparently prisoners, including one photo of "a soldier holding a leash tied around a man's neck in an Iraqi prison. He is naked, grimacing and lying on the floor." The new photos, the newspaper said, were taken from last summer through the winter with several digital cameras. It said it could not eliminate the possibility that some of the photos were staged. In Washington, anger over the scandal appeared to be escalating, with members of Congress demanding public hearings. Lawmakers announced that the Pentagon's top two officials - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - would testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday. "Accountability is essential. So the question for me is, what did Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the Pentagon know, when did they know it and what did they do about it?" said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "If the answers are unsatisfactory, resignations should be sought." James Zogby, who has conducted extensive polling in the Middle East on Arab public opinion, said he feared the president's words were inadequate to halt the erosion of U.S. standing in the region. "Other than saying this isn't who we are, that it's abhorrent, there was nothing else there," said Zogby, an independent pollster. "To fail to understand how grave this situation is, how compromised our mission has become, is an enormous mistake." David Morey, who served as chairman of a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Public Diplomacy last year, said the situation had reached crisis level. "If you were going to arrange pictures that were counterproductive to American interests in the region, you couldn't have come up with anything better," Morey said. "In effect, we produced a commercial against ourselves. That shows how big the crisis is that we are in, and we need to treat it like a crisis." Others were more sanguine. Edward Djerejian, director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, said the damage was significant but might be repairable. "Incidents like this damage our credibility in terms of our values as a nation, so one can't be naive in saying that this doesn't damage our image," he said. "The only saving grace in this incident is that we are a transparent society, and it gives us a chance to practice what we preach in terms of rule of law." Zogby noted that the pictures came to light at a time when Arab leaders were already enraged at Bush for giving a strong policy endorsement to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "Opinion is turning against us," Zogby said. "I think we can recover domestically if we do some really hard things about holding people responsible. But in the Middle East, unless we take some really dramatic steps, I don't think we can recover from this." * Voices on the scandal "I would like to apologize for our nation, for our military. I will personally guarantee that this will not happen again." - Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, U.S. head of prisons in Iraq. "Opinion is turning against us. I think we can recover domestically if we do some really hard things about holding people responsible. But in the Middle East, unless we take some really dramatic steps, I don't think we can recover from this." -- James Zogby, independent pollster "If it goes all the way to Rumsfeld, then he should resign. Who is in charge?" - Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-Del.) "It's also important for the people of Iraq to know that in a democracy, everything is not perfect, that mistakes are made. But in a democracy, as well, those mistakes will be investigated and people will be brought to justice." - President Bush during an Arabic TV interview. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I never thought American people could do something of this nature." -- Haider Sabber Abd, former prison detainee "My Army's been embarrassed by this. My Army's been shamed by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those soldiers did to your citizens. It was reprehensible, and it was unacceptable&. We have to take those words into action and ensure that never happens again." Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, military spokesman. "It looks as if they've been sitting on the pictures and the whole story. They've made it much worse by sitting on this." -- David Gergen, Harvard professor, who has advised presidents of both parties "Where's the freedom, Mr. Bush?" - An Abu Ghraib detainee, holding a prosthetic leg above his head. Reynolds reported from Washington and Rubin from Baghdad. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell in Baghdad contributed to this report. |